


I Don't Think You Ever Did

by Ohshitmyship



Series: Season 12 One Shots [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cas and Dean talking, Feelings, I actually GIVE Cas a reason for not being in the end of the episode, M/M, Mention of - Freeform, also, and also why the Endverse photo is in their, endverse!, fluff? I don't even know anymore man, i fixed the last episode, i literally just want them to have a million heart to hearts about literally everything, oh yeah, so that's what I'm doing, whoops wrong there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:58:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8374759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohshitmyship/pseuds/Ohshitmyship
Summary: Sam is back and soon, things will be back to normal. But now, everyone is rethinking their pasts and what they've missed. And, oh look, Castiel actually exists. What a shock.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Man I am pumping these out, like, how? I feel bad because I'm like completely neglecting my SEVERAL OTHER FICS but whatever I have emotions

  
I Don't Think You Ever Did.

When the strange man gestures for the Winchesters to go up the stairs, Dean steps forward warily. All eyes on him, Dean's eyes flickering between the man and Cas, having a silent conversation with the angel, Dean walks up the stairs. Sam follows, then Mary, and finally Cas. He stops at the foot of the stairs and gives both of the Brits a weird look. And then he turns and follows the hunters.

Once they are all outside, they let out a collective breath of relief. Even Castiel looks less tense, although he doesn't display much emotion.

"Mom," Sam says after a moment, staring at his formerly dead mother in awe, "I can't, I mean, you're alive, and you saved us, and-"

"And there's a lot we need to talk about," She said with a smile. She walked forward and put her arms around Sam in a hug, motioning for Dean to join in, which he did. The fact that both of her boys, aged four and six months last she saw them, were now taller and almost older than her, made her heart ache.

When they pulled apart, Dean noticed Cas standing off to the side, looking slightly more awkward than usual. They made eye contact, but before anything could be conveyed between them, Sam spoke up.

"I think we should all get home. Have you seen the bunker?"

Mary nodded and smiled, "Yes, Dean showed me. I have to say, it's very impressive."

"Isn't it?" Sam asked excitedly, "There's a library and weapons and a storage room, there's always new things that we keep finding." The two chatted about the bunker as they walked over to the Impala. Dean, however, walked over to Cas, who stood next to his stolen truck.

"We've finally found Sam," Cas stated.

"Yeah," Dean said with a smile, "But we couldn't have done it without you."

"I doubt that," Cas said, looking at the dead grass at his feet, "It might have taken a fair bit longer, but I trust that you could've found him."

"Hey." Dean nudged him with his own shoulder and Cas looked up to see him still smiling, "Just take the compliment, woul'ja?"

Cas smiled softly, "Thank you."

Dean chuckled, leaning back against the truck, "That's more like it. So, what are you going to do now?"

Cas looked back over at the dark house and narrowed his eyes a bit, "I think that I'll stay here and scope things out more, see if I can find anything about these people."

"Oh," Dean said, a little disappointed. Cas was his best friend, a part of the family. He felt like they hardly ever saw each other anymore, since Cas was almost always doing his own angel thing, "Why don't you come back with us? There's plenty of room in the bunker."

Cas looked at Dean, then at Sam and Mary still chatting by the car, and then back at Dean again, "You've finally got your family back, Dean. I don't wish to impede on that."

Dean snorted, "Please, Cas. You're a part of this family too."

"Thank you," Cas said with a slight smile, "That is sweet of you. But, well, I'll give you all some time to adjust to each other."

Dean sighed, knowing Cas wouldn't change his mind, as stubborn as he was.

"Alright," He said, slapping a hand on Cas's shoulder and squeezing, "Just call if you find anything or of anything happens."

"Of course, Dean."

They met each others' eyes and they held contact for what was probably considered inappropriate, but when had they ever cared? Dean's hand was still on Cas's shoulder until he sighed and turned away, letting his hand fall down and graze Castiel's sleeve.

"See ya, Cas."

"Goodbye, Dean."

Dean walked back to his family, hands in his pockets. All three of them get in the car; Dean drives, Sam sits shotgun with Mary in the back. Cas turned and watched them go, dust kicking up behind the tires, the sun hitting the dent in the side of the car. Cas sees Dean's left hand stick out of the left window in a lazy goodbye wave. It left Cas smiling.

Later that evening, while Sam sits in his room and stares at his ceiling, thinking of his mother and Jessica, while Mary leafs through her dead husband's journal, filled halfway with his own handwriting, transitioning to that of her sons, Dean sits on the kitchen floor, back to the counter, a beer in his hands, and old photos in his lap.

The photos are from his house, their first home. They're old and crinkled, starting to fade. They're pictures of him, Sammy, and their dad on fishing trips, John teaching the boys how to shoot, stuff like that. But he keeps coming back to one photo, one where his mother is hugging him from behind, he's young, and they're both smiling wide. Dean can't remember the photo being taken. It makes him sad.

Suddenly, he hears the door opening and heavy footsteps down the stairs and into the kitchen.

"Cas?" Dean calls out, too lazy to move.

"Yes, it's me," Cas says, "Where are you?"

"Kitchen, behind the counter."

Dean heard Cas walk around and then he is there, standing above him, his cute puzzled look on his face.

"What are you doing?" He is curious and not condescending. In lieu of an answer, Dean just pats the floor beside him and Cas sits down, looking at the photos in his lap.

"These are of you."

"Yeah," Dean says, smiling as he puts his beer down and starts rifling through them, "They're from my old house, my first home."

Cas reaches over and gingerly picks up the photo of John, Sam, and Dean sitting on the hood of the Impala.

"I remember that," Dean said with a smile, "Bobby took that one."

Cas gently traced his hand over Dean's face and spoke sadly, "You were so young. You both were."

Dean looked at Cas frowning. He was too pretty to frown, but Dean found that Cas did it far too often for his liking.

"We were," Dean admitted, "But if there're two things I've learned, it's that you should never eat gas station sushi-" Cas chuckled, "And you shouldn't spend so much time worrying about how it could have been different. It took me a lot longer to figure out that last one than it should've, but I think I've finally got it."

"It seems you have."

They slipped into a comfortable silence as they rifled through the photos and Dean sipped his beer. After some time, he spoke.

"Hey, remember back before the Apocalypse, when Zachariah brought me to 2014?"

Cas looked up at Dean, "Yes."

"Well, did I ever actually tell you what happened when I was there?"

Cas shook his head, "You gave me details, but no. I don't think you ever did."

"Well then," Dean said, shifting himself to be just a little closer to Cas, "It was bad, to say the least. I woke up in the same motel, but it was falling apart and there were Croats everywhere. Out of nowhere, the military showed and started blasting them, but I don't know if they ever saw me or what. I managed to find my way to Bobby's, where I found his wheelchair with two bloody gunshots, and a picture of everyone in front of a camp. You, Chuck, Bobby, and a bunch of strangers were in it. I wasn't, I think I might have been the one to take it? I'm not sure.

"Anyways, I finally found the place; an old summer camp turned into a war base. Wanna know the first thing I saw?"

"What?"

Dean shook his head sadly, "Baby, tossed to the side like an old toy. She was rusted and dirty and there were plants growing right through her. That's when I knew that something was wrong."

"It wasn't the corrupt military, ruined cities, dead Bobby, or the Croats?" Cas asked with a slight smirk.

"Well, those all meant different things," Dean explained, "That meant that something was wrong with the world. But if Baby was left to die like that, well, that meant that there was something wrong with me."

"I see," Cas said, "So what happened after that?"

Dean shrugged, "Well, then my future self came and beat me up then chained me up in the basement so no one would see me and freak out. After some thorough questioning, he figured out that I was his last self and I figured out that I was in 2014. It was an odd scenario, I gotta say."

"So did you stay chained up? Because I highly doubt it."

Dean chuckled, "You know me so well. Yeah, I managed to pick the lock and get out. After that, I did some snooping. I ran into a couple of people, just some girl in the camp and, actually, Chuck was there."

"Chuck," Cas clarified, "As in, God Chuck, my father?"

Dean's face scrunched up, "I still think it's weird that Chuck's your father. But anyways yeah, that's him. I still have no idea what he was doing there, but he was chipping in. He wasn't fighting, but he kept tabs of all of the food and supplies and stuff. And then, well, then I found you. And damn Cas, you were messed up."

Cas frowned again, "How so?"

Dean sighed and let his head fall back against the counter, "I came to find you, and you were messy. You smelled weird, you had a beard like the one in Purgatory, and you were just abut to start your own orgy."

"I beg your pardon?"

Dean laughed at the shock on Cas's face, "I couldn't believe it either. And then I found out that you smoked and did all kinds of wacky drugs. And you, you acted weird too." Dean shook his head again, "You were so loose and uncaring, it was shocking, to say the least. You helped, though, more than my future self did. You told me pretty much everything and you knew instantly that I wasn't your Dean. And then my future self came back from a supply run and everyone saw us, and he wasn't too happy about that, let me tell you. And I found out, well, he did kind of tell me, that we..." Dean found himself trailing off as he looked at Cas's expectant face.

Even though it had been seven years, he distinctly remembered a rather pivotal moment; when his future self had pointed at Cas and proclaimed "Me and him, it's a pretty messed up situation we got going." At first, Dean thought that his future self had pointed at him, but when he turned around to see Cas's closed expression, him biting his lip, Dean had figured it out. There had been clues before, like when he had first entered Cas's place, how Cas had greeted him, how all of the girls had left with no complaint, how Chuck had been shocked that Dean, of all people, didn't know where Cas's cabin was. Perhaps one of the biggest clues had been when that girl had tried to beat him up for spending the night in someone else's cabin. She had been mad, sure, but both Chuck and the girl had seemed unsurprised by the whole scenario.

Dean and Cas's future selves had been sleeping together, or at least something of the sort.

Dean hadn't questioned it, for a lot of reasons. The first was that, yeah, he was surprised, but was he really surprised? If he was honest with himself, after the initial shock, it all made sense. Cas had always been something more than a friend, even more than family. They had known each other for years, and he was proud to say that their relationship had come a long way from their first meeting in that old barn when sparks literally flew.

So, no, Dean hadn't been all that surprised to learn that a version of him and Cas were together in some way, shape, or form. But there had been other questions, more important ones that demanded answers. Like what happened to Sammy, why did his future self kill one of his own in cold blood, what had happened to Bobby, what were they even doing?

"What were we?" Cas asked tentatively.

Dean looked at his expectant face and found he couldn't say it. What could he do? Play it off as a joke, only to have Cas be hurt by the idea of him laughing at it? Tell him in seriousness only for him to be weirded out by it? Dean wasn't sure what he had Cas had, but he knew that whatever it was, it was delicate. He didn't think he could ever forgive himself for ruining their relationship.

So instead he said, "We screwed up. You lost all of your mojo and stopped caring, I got hard and insensitive and I.... I sent my friends, I sent you to die."

Cas was silent, but his furrowed brow showed that he was processing it. Dean took a deep breath and another swig of beer before speaking again.

"That's why I keep the photo. I think Zach let me keep it as a warning, but I keep it as a reminder. A reminder of how messed up we all were, how much the world sucked. It's a good reminder that hey, we screw up sometimes, but Lucifer isn't possessing Sam, the world isn't overrun by Croats, Baby's still intact, you're not a hippy," Dean nudged Cas with a smile, who smiled in return, "And we're all pretty okay. I mean, you're here, Sam's here, Mom's here, and I'm here. Crowley and Rowena don't seem to be causing any trouble, the Brits have left for now, and Chuck and Amara are in a nice sibling vacay, talking about their feelings."

"I guess you could say that we've found our moment of peace," Cas said with a small smile.

Dean grinned, "Yeah. Our moment of peace."

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
